Johan Nunez

Biography

Born on March 3rd 1988 in the city of Charleroi (Belgium), where I lived most of my life, I wasn’t raised in a very musical background. My older brother being the only musician in the family and me being 8 years younger, I pretty much followed his steps in terms of what to listen to. I can’t say I was a big fan of metal from the beginning, but bands like Megadeth, Metallica, Guns & Roses did have a pretty big impact on me at an early age.

My parents decided to send me to music school at the age of 6 where I started learning piano and music theory, which didn’t exactly make me want to be a musician. So I eventually did quit playing music for a couple of years, until my brother asked me to learn a couple of basic rhythm on drums for one if his project at the Conservatory. I was about 13 y/o and never stopped ever since.

I was always eager to play and develop my range of drumming abilities so I joined a bunch of local bands really early, played my first shows and recorded my first demos around the age of 15. That’s also when I started attending real rock/metal shows and when I decided that’s what I wanted to become.

Around the age of 19 I flew to Sweden to audition for what was going to be my first serious gig. I passed it and ended up in Nightrage for the next 6 years, recording 3 albums and touring worldwide. During those years I got to meet the guys in Firewind, which eventually also landed me the gig in 2011. Since then I’ve had the chance to play with and for a bunch of personal favourites/badass musicians to finally find a new home here, and I’m already excited for the new challenge.

On a more personal note, I currently reside in Madrid (Spain), though my whole family is still in Belgium so I’m always in between. I speak French, Spanish, English and curse in Greek fluently. I love hiking and just walking in general so you might see me wandering around your city if we happen to be there on a day off. I’m a dog person, though my lifestyle doesn’t allow me to have one at home unfortunately, but I’ll gladly hang out with yours!

I’m pretty adventurous when it comes to food, I love trying whatever is new to me and local when I’m abroad, but in general you can’t go wrong with sweets. Drinks, if there’s anything vanilla flavoured I’ll try it, other than that I mostly stick to water, coffee and tea (some energy drink before playing if I didn’t get enough sleep).